you'll be the only light i see
by abbyli
Summary: Grace discovers that Will's current boyfriend is abusing him. *A/N: When you read, listen to the song "Every Breath" by Boyce Avenue.*


_**you'll be the only light i see**_

* * *

It was about three in the morning when he came home.

Terrified and so relieved, Grace leapt into Will's arms and hugged him tightly.

"Are you all right? It's three in the morning. Are you okay? Don't you ever scare me like that again...Oh, my God, what happened to your face?"

There was a large purple bruise shining on his cheek, stretching from underneath his eye and down to the corner of his jaw. It was so obvious that somebody had clocked him.

"It was nothing. I ran into a taxi door," he easily lied as he put her back onto the floor.

"Will, it looks like somebody hit you. Did you get into a bar fight?" Even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew how ridiculous they sounded. As she reached out to grab his arm, she felt him flinch under her fingers. "Will?"

"It's not important, Grace. Now come on, let's go to bed."

"Will!"

This time, she did get a hold of his arm. He pulled it away and turned. "Don't touch me!" he snarled.

"Oh, my God. Did..." she pointed at his face. "Did Lawrence hurt you?"

For the past four months, Will had been dating a fellow lawyer named Lawrence Roberts. He was an all right guy, a very brutal defense lawyer actually. Grace didn't like him very much at all, finding him creepy and a little pushy. Will ignored her warnings and continued dating him. But the worry mostly was Lawrence had a very testy temper. It didn't take much to set him off.

"No!" he immediately protested. "Don't be ridiculous!"

Grace leapt over and grabbed his arms, pulling his long sleeves up. More marks greeted her eyes, the unsightly bruises of being grabbed too roughly.

"All right, I'm calling the cops!" she announced, releasing Will's arms and heading for the phone.

"No, Grace!" Will was too quick and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back.

"Will, Lawrence is beating you! He needs to go to jail!" she persisted, pulling away a little too gruffly. When she heard Will's small cry of pain, she knew something even worse was going on. "Will?"

Will had doubled over in pain, clutching one hand at his belly. She pulled his shirt up and saw the rapidly forming purple splotch.

"Screw the police, I'm calling an ambulance."

* * *

Several bruises all over his body, a few deep ones on his back, lacerations, and two broken ribs.

Lawrence had effectively beaten the living hell out of Will.

The doctors in the ER patched Will up and asked him to stay the night so they could observe him. He tried to squirm out of it but Grace told him to stay. After a bit of arguing, he relented.

"Do you want to tell me what happened to you, Mr. Truman?" the doctor asked. He was very gentle and careful with his words. He didn't even have his clipboard.

Will shook his head, not looking at the doctor. He stared up at the ceiling, his dark brown eyes slowly filling up with tears. "I fell."

"Will-" Grace began to intercut but Will held up a hand to silence her.

"I fell."

Grace glanced at Dr. Walters and she knew he didn't believe a word Will said.

"All right."

* * *

"Dr. Walters?"

The large man turned at the sound of Grace's voice. "Yes, Ms. Adler?"

"Um...I'm not Will's wife. I'm not even related to him. But I love him more than anything in this world and-" her voice broke. Tears burned her eyes. "And if you love someone and you think that they are being hurt, then you should say something, right?"

The doctor watched her face for a second. Then he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her over to the chairs, helping her shakily into a seat.

"What happened to Will, Grace?" he whispered, leaning close to her.

Grace took a deep breath, feeling the tears burning her eyes. "He came home around three, bruised and bloody. He, uh, kept saying that he had walked into a cab door but you don't get that from walking into a door."

The doctor didn't interrupt, continuing to watch her and listen closely.

"He's dating a guy who's got a short temper. This man's always been very rude and very pushy."

"Have you ever seen him strike Will?" asked the doctor.

Grace shook her head. "No but I did see him grab Will once. And I have heard them fighting a couple of times."

"Do you think that the boyfriend did this to him?"

Grace nodded, feeling the tears spilling over.

"All right," the doctor began gently. "Ms. Adler, you do understand that I have to call the police and report this?"

She nodded again. "Yeah."

* * *

"You are a psychopath, Grace. This is crazy!"

"Will-"

"Grace, Lawrence didn't do this to me!"

"Then who did?" she snarled. "Who did?"

He had no answer for that.

"Will, this is me. This is your best friend. Why won't you tell me what happened? If it wasn't Lawrence who did this, then who did?"

Will glanced down at his hands. They were resting on top of his lap and they hadn't stopped shaking all evening. Grace noticed and gently laced her fingers through his, her large blue eyes full of earnest. "What did Lawerence do to you?"

Tears formed and quickly spilled over. Will clumsily wiped them away. "I don't know. I lost consciousness a couple of times."

* * *

"I have to do a rape exam."

"You didn't do that before?" asked Grace.

"No, because this was brought in as a bar beating. Now that it's a domestic abuse situation and the victim has admitted that he lost consciousness at one point, we have to do the exam," said the doctor.

Grace could feel whatever food she had left in her stomach starting to roll and head up her esophagus.

* * *

The police were there after the rest of the tests were over. Thankfully, Will hadn't been raped. There were no signs of it. But there was still more bruising and more lacerations that were patched up. The bruise on his face shined in the bright light of the hospital room, making Grace physically sick to her stomach. She wanted to find Lawrence and kill him.

She remained with him as he gave his statement to the police, explaining clearly that he had lost consciousness for a few minutes at one point. But when he went deeper into the description, she wanted to leave. She could see images of Lawrence in her mind, horrid images that were going to haunt her for the rest of her life.

* * *

"Whoever this is, it better be important. Jack needs his beauty sleep."

"Jack, it's Grace."

By the tone of her voice, he knew something was wrong. "Grace, what's up?"

"I'm at the hospital. Will's in the ER."

"What happened?"

The tears burned her eyes. She clumsily wiped them away before forcing the words out of her mouth. "Lawrence beat him up."

There was silence on the other end for several moments. But then she heard her friend's voice. "I'll be right there."

* * *

Jack didn't like Lawrence one bit. He had actually hit on Lawrence the first time that he had met him but Lawrence had made a beeline for Will. Later though, when Jack spent more time with Lawrence through Will, he started to see how short tempered and crude the large man was.

* * *

"_So, this Lawrence guy. How's it going with him?"_

_Will glanced at his friend. Jack could see the glimmer of worry in his eyes and reached out a hand._

"_Will, are you all right?"_

_Will nodded. "I'm fine. Everything's fine." _

_Subconsciously, Will yanked on the sleeve of his jacket. Jack noticed the anxious on his friend's face. _

"_Will?" _

"_It's nothing, Jack."_

_Jack leaned back in his chair, disbelieving look on his face. _

_At that moment, the door swung open and in stomped a very agitated Lawrence. _

"_I have been waiting for you at that restaurant for a half hour, where the hell where you?" snarled the larger man. _

_For a split second, Jack could have sworn he saw fear in Will's eyes. He apologized profusely to Lawrence and followed him out of the office, not looking back at Jack. _

_Jack stood up, watching the two men through the side window as they walked down the hallway. Even though the office was soundproof, he could almost hear Lawrence's scathing words at Will. He could also see Will take the remarks._

_Then, Lawrence did something that made Jack want to vomit. _

"_Oh, Will..." _

* * *

He watched his sleeping friend, finally looking more peaceful than he had seen him in quite some time.

He couldn't ignore the guilt that had been encasing his heart ever since he had first seen the piece of filth snap at Will. He could still see that flicker of fear in his friend's eyes. He could still hear those words that Lawrence had spoken to Will.

"You okay?"

Jack looked up at Karen. She had arrived about five minutes after he did, her hair in a disarray and wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. He had never seen Karen look so...normal in all of his life, so unlike Karen Walker. But when he saw that look in her eyes, like a small animal cornered, he realized then how much Karen really did care about Will.

"Yeah," he lied.

Karen rolled her eyes and approached his chair. She skimmed her long fingers through his cropped hair. "You've never been a good liar, Jackie."

Jack sighed. "I feel like this is a little bit my fault," he murmured.

"And why would you think that?" asked Karen.

"Because I knew it was happening. Well, I didn't exactly know that it was happening but I always had a sense. I even saw Lawrence grab Will one time."

"You did?" Karen stepped back, her eyes wide with alarm.

Jack sighed again, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. "Damn it."

"Oh, Jackie," Karen slowly slipped her arms around him from behind. "It's not your fault."

* * *

"What did he do?"

A deep breath shuddered through his body as he forced himself to look at his friend.

"It started off as an argument. Just another silly, ridiculous argument. But Lawrence began to get angrier and angrier. I realized that this was going to turn into something really bad and I tried to calm him down," Will began. His throat was rapidly closing up. He couldn't breathe.

Grace slowly shifted her body closer, still not daring to touch him.

"But that didn't help. Whatever I tried to do, it just made him angrier."

Tears burned his eyes. He swiped a hand across his face in a vain attempt to hold them back.

"And then...he...he told me to shut up and then he hit me. That's where this came from," Will gestured to the long dark blue bruise along his cheek bone.

"Is that what knocked you out?" asked Grace quietly.

Will nodded. "I fell and I hit my head on the floor. The next thing I knew, he was rolling me over and kicking me."

That's where the broken ribs came from, thought Grace.

"I tried to fight him off, Gracie. I tried. But he was just too strong," he whispered. The tears finally started to escape. "I shouldn't have made him mad. It was my fault!"

"Will!" Grace quickly interrupted. "Will, don't you ever think that this is your fault!" She carefully laced her fingers through his. "This is not your fault! None of this is your fault."

"Grace-"

"Will, listen to me. Lawrence is the one at fault. He beat the hell out of you. He will surely be rotting in hell for what he did. And I am going to be the one to personally put him there. But, Will-this is not your fault. Do you understand? This is not your fault," she whispered. She looped her arm around his shoulders, shifting her body onto the bed beside him. He tensed up as her arms tightened around him. "Just let it go."

Will finally relaxed in her arms, leaning his head against her swollen belly. He listened to the sounds of their child squirming around inside of her and finally felt the comfort.

"Just let it go," she whispered. "Let it go."

The tears came heavy and hard, the sobs breaking out of his throat, making him feel raw and broken. Their arms twined together, their fingers linking tightly.

* * *

"Grace Adler to see Lawrence Roberts."

Grace was escorted into the visitation room by the guard. She lowered her pregnant body into the uncomfortable chair and stared into the glass where Lawrence would be appearing soon.

Moments later, he was brought in by another guard. His eyes widened slightly when he saw her.

"Grace?"

Grace took in Lawrence's appearance. He was just as she remembered him. Tall, attractive, mop of dark brown hair, and big grey eyes. But those eyes held a lot more than met the regular appearance. She guessed that she had always known that deep down. She didn't think she could ever forgive herself for allowing it to pass by her.

"Hi, Lawrence," she whispered coldly.

"How are you?" he asked. His eyes took in her puffy and pregnant body. "How's the baby?"

"I'm fine. The baby's fine," she murmured, her arms circling her pregnant body protectively.

"How's Will?" he finally asked. "Is he out of the hospital yet?"

Time for the kill.

"Yeah, he is," said Grace. "I took him home last night." Her face was slack and her eyes were drilled with ice. She still couldn't believe that she had done this. Even after Will had begged her not to go see him after an angry outburst where she happily announced she was going to rip Lawrence limb from limb.

"How is he?" Lawrence asked quietly. "He's all right, isn't he?"

Grace shook her head. "No, Larry. He's not." Her eyes fell to her knees. "You broke him, you know that? You ripped him apart and made him feel like he was nothing."

"Grace, you know how horrible I feel about that. I was just so angry," the man breathed.

"That's not an excuse, Lawrence. When you are angry, you walk away. You go punch a hole in the wall. You break something but not your boyfriend's face!" Grace's voice was dropping into a snarl.

"Grace-?"

"No, Lawrence! Don't feed me some cock and bull story about how sorry you are and how you wish you could take it all back! I am about to give birth to our child and Will's terrified that he may hurt our baby! And that's because of you! Will woke up screaming last night, thinking that you were coming to get him and hurt him again! Do you even realize what you did to him? Do you even care? Or are you just worried about the time you are going to spend rotting in here? Because I assure you, you will be here a long time!"

With that, Grace pulled herself off of the chair and banged on the door. The guard came and let her out. Grace left without even a backwards glance.

* * *

"Drink?"

Lawrence stared at the woman in front of him. "No, thank you."

"You know, I remember the first time I met Will Truman," said Karen Walker as she sat back in her chair. She took a long gulp from her flask. "I thought he was the geekiest thing I had ever seen. He sure was a cutie pie though."

Lawrence couldn't believe that this was happening. He had never seen a creature like Karen Walker before in his whole entire life.

"And he was the kindest soul I had ever met. Whenever I saw him and Grace together, I saw real love. They are a pair that always has each other's backs. They love each other so purely and that is something that I have learned from. I really didn't know how to love until I met the two of them."

Karen took a deep, shaky breath. She glanced down at her shiny flask and saw her own reflection mirrored back at her.

"Will and I go around and around with our sniping and name calling. But I can assure you, I love him so much. He has done so much for me. So much more than I deserve. But what can I do? I just appreciate him. And I love him back."

* * *

Lilly Georgette Truman was born on May 7th that following month.

The moment that she was placed in Will's arms, he was breath taken.

"Wow."

Her exhausted mommy leaned forward, smiling brightly. "See? I told you that light is still here in this world."

Will tore his eyes away from their newborn daughter to look back at her mother. "I love you," he murmured.

Grace smiled and leaned forward, pressing her lips gently against his. "I love you too."

The nightmares were gone.

Replaced by light and laughter.

* * *

**Okay my lovelies! This is really sad but it's what I think would happen if something horrible ever happened to Will. Throughout the whole show, we see the two of them supporting each other like crazy whenever something emotionally exhausting ever happens to the other. So I thought about this idea and I know how horrible I am. Karen visiting Lawrence was something that came up while I was thinking about another story actually. It made me wonder what she would have done if she had to confront someone that hurt someone she loved . **

**Reviews are loved. And thank you to the wonderful people who are reading this. **


End file.
